Spurs 2 - 0 Newcastle/Good Old Ralph Coates

A few weeks ago Mike Ashley, Newcastle United’s pig-like owner, sacked manager Chris Hughton. Hughton got Newcastle promoted at the first time of asking without spending any money, beat Sunderland in the biggest derby win for 55 years, won at Arsenal and drew with the Champions. They were in 11^th place and Hughton had brought some respectability to a shambolic football club. Regardless of Hughton’s reputation as the nicest man in football and more than 30 years of loyal service to Tottenham Hotspur its still a decision that makes you wonder how a buffoon like Ashley became a multi-millionaire.

I got to Liverpool Street station to find out all the trains had been cancelled. I really should start reading the travel updates on the Spurs website. I got coffee on my lilywhite scarf running for the 149. The bus went past a billboard in Seven Sisters advertising cheap tickets for the FA Cup game against Charlton. It has a life-size Gary Doherty, presumably selling the match as a sort of ‘if you missed him first time round…’.

Jermain Defoe’s arm-first aerial challenge, a booking for dangerous play at most, has earned him a three-match ban. Roman Pavlyuchenko took his place. The first half was largely uneventful before the last action where Tim Krul tipped his header on to the inside of the post. Earlier a Gareth Bale run was thwarted at the last moment by an Alan Smith block and Rafael van der Vaart had a free-kick tipped over. 

Ralph Coates

At half time the club paid tribute to the late Ralph Coates. I was too high up in the north stand to see the video. Coates played 248 times for Spurs winning the League Cup, in which he scored the winning goal, and the UEFA Cup. Alan Mullery recalled Coates arriving from his beloved Burnley in a purple suit. John Pratt said, “a nicer man you couldn’t wish to meet”. He once asked Coates if he used anything to keep his Bobby Charlton-style comb-over in place. He said he tried blu-tack, but it didn’t work very well. Martin Chivers said Coates considered moving to Spurs the best decision of his life and Pat Jennings’ accent as just noise to my cockney ears.

Jermaine Jenas replaced Wilson Palacios for the second half and kept possession and passed the ball much better. Younes Kaboul was increasingly involved in the attack and played an incisive cross-field ball to Lennon who took it on the move and beat Krul at the far post.

Ten minutes later Kaboul was sent off for squaring up to Cheick Tioté and thrusting his head at him. Pavlyuchenko made way for Sébastien Bassong, Newcastle introduced Nile Ranger to help the isolated Andy Carroll, and shortly after Van der Vaart was replaced by Peter Crouch. Like on Boxing Day we were superior even with ten men.

Lennon almost got a second goal very similar to the first, then in the 81^st minute Luka Modrić, who was man of the match, picked up the ball just outside our area, took it past the halfway line and let Bale go. Bale charged down the left, made light work of Steven Taylor and Krul was beaten at his far post again.

Late on Heurelho Gomes saved a Carroll header after Joey Barton got a volley of deserved abuse at the corner flag. Earlier in the match, Barton, villain that he is, rather than give it back to us, used a drop-ball to get Newcastle a throw in ten yards from the corner.

It may not last any longer than a day, but we are in the top four ahead of Chelsea. Manchester City are top without particularly impressing. It’s an odd season where the title isn’t beyond us, but equally fifth place wouldn’t be a surprise.

Only Need 10 Men When One Is VDV!!! Villa 1 - 2 Spurs

We'd been waiting to play for fourteen long days since that draw with Chelsea and even longer to see Rafael van der Vaart partnered with Jermain Defoe.

The first half was thrilling and and both teams played with high energy despite the cold. Heurelho Gomes was making saves from the first minute. Wilson Palacios was beaten in the air by James Collins, but Marc Albrighton couldn't score with either of his efforts. Luka Modric's ball was flicked on by Aaron Lennon, but Defoe didn't have enough time or space to get the ball past Brad Friedel. In the 9th minute Gomes made a diving punch at knee-level clattering into Emile Heskey after taking the ball. The referee didn't award a penalty, but perhaps should have done.

In the 16th minute Younes Kaboul had the ball in the net, but Van der Vaart's long ball was adjudged to have gone out of play before Alan Hutton squared it. Replays weren't conclusive, but suggested the goal probably should have stood.

Heskey beat Michael Dawson in the air and Gabriel Agbonlahor had a free run at Gomes. Gomes saved his shot and put the tame follow up round the post. As I point out Kaboul's mistakes so often I will add that he made an excellent defensive header

In the 23rd minute a lovely passing move culminated in the opening. Modric played a diagonal ball to Hutton who squared it and while Collins was agonisingly close to an interception Van der Vaart got in front of Defoe and side-footed past Friedel. Four minutes later Defoe was sent off when he jumped with Collins for a header and hit the defender in the face. A red card and three-game ban is very harsh for what was, at worst, dangerous play.

I got a text from my friend Thabo saying, 'Palacios has learnt some skills over Christmas'. He knocked the ball past a Villa player, ran round him, played a one-two with Van der Vaart and spanked a shot, which Friedel tipped wide. He had a good game against a pitiful midfield.

Redknapp was wise not to change anything in the aftermath of the red card. The second half wasn't played at quite as high a tempo, but Villa steadily got more possession and chances. Even with a man less it didn't look like it would cost us and Van der Vaart doubled our lead in the 67th minute finishing off a devastating counter attack. He was strong and sent Gareth Bale on his way down the right. It was no coincidence that Bale's first impact on the game came on the wrong flank as Villa's right-back Eric Lichaj was excellent. Bale cut inside, played the ball to Lennon and Lennon knocked it back for Van der Vaart to score.

Lennon backed off Albrighton completely on the edge of the Spurs box with eight minutes to play. Kaboul tussled with James Collins, but didn't put a header in and the ball bounced past a stationary Gomes. It made the last ten minutes unnecessarily tense and on the bench, having been substituted for Peter Crouch, Van der Vaart looked like he was going to have a breakdown. In the 90th minute when the referee decided against penalising Robert Pires for a horribly timed tackle Van der Vaart whipped his Tottenham Hotspur coat in anger and in the 94th minute he was anxiously asking Joe Jordan for the time. He was on the pitch after the match hugging and celebrating with all the players. It looked like he'd really missed playing and I must admit, I missed him too.

The Winners of Club Player 1987-present

1987 Gary Mabbutt 1988 Chris Waddle 1989 Erik Thorstvedt 1990 Paul Gascoigne 1991 Paul Allen 1992 Gary Lineker

1993 Darren Anderton 1994 Jürgen Klinsmann 1995 Teddy Sheringham 1996 Sol Campbell 1997 Sol Campbell 1998 David Ginola

1999 Stephen Carr 2000 Stephen Carr 2001 Neil Sullivan 2002 Simon Davies 2003 Robbie Keane 2004 Jermain Defoe As voted by Season ticket holders and members of the club.

2005–06 Robbie Keane 2006–07 Dimitar Berbatov 2007–08 Robbie Keane 2008–09 Aaron Lennon 2009–10 Michael Dawson

Don't Go Harry

It is amazing what a manager can do 1 and a half years and follow on the next year. Harry has changed the flops of Juande Ramos's side and turned it into a world 11 which was capable of beating Inter Milan. Aslong as Champions League Harry Redknapp has brung the belief that we can beat Man U, Chelsea and Arsenal.
Luka Modric, Peter Crouch, Van Der Vaart, JD (brung back from portsmouth), and many more are just some of Harry Redknapps tasty signings. I throw my hat off to Harry who has broken records such as: 18 years without winning away to Arsenal, First Champo League for Spurs, Got us to the Carling Cup final for the 2nd year running and was only the second manager to win premier league manager of the year without winning the league.

Now I put club before country any day of the year. So when Harry emerged favourite to become England manager in 2012 when Capello's contract ends, I was naturally disapointed. The fact that Harry did not denie intrests in becoming our England manager added further dissapointment. But I plan to make the most of the next two years with Harry even if he does go. Maybe we will win the Champions League surely that is enough to persuade a manager to stay at a very decent club.

Harry Redkanpp last season
In 2009–10, his first full campaign with the club, Redknapp guided us to our most successful Premier League season to date. Beginning with four consecutive wins, We went on to finish in fourth place in the league, thus gaining the chance to qualify for the Champions League by means of a play-off. As a result of his efforts he was awarded the Premier League Manager of the Year award, only the second manager to do so in a season when his side did not win the title. :)

If Harry does go no man would be better for the vacancy than Martin Jol, who has earned his rightful place in my all-time favourite managers of Spurs. He gained 5th place in the league 2 years in a row and in the first year we were rather cheated out of 4th as a chef at the marriot hotel fed food posined lasagne to our players. Due to illness our players were all fighting to stay on their feet during the game against West Ham on the final day of the season. We lost 2 - 1 and as such we were subsequently dropped to 5th in the league with rivals Arsenal stealing 4th spot by just a point. Martin Jol enjoyed a 1 year stay at Hamburg after getting the sack from levy during which he got to the semi-final of both German Cup and Eufa Cup. He also finished 4th in the German Bundesliga after holding first spot for a record 28 weeks. 3 losses in his last 4 games dropped them into 4th spot.

But if I could pick any manager to mange spurs for the next ten or twenty years i'd pick Harry.

Please stay Harry :)

Hard draw in 2nd round

Spurs get toughest possible draw

So much for winning the group.

I don’t mean that. While we won’t be favourites against AC Milan, Arsenal play Barcelona with the sole aim of keeping the aggregate score down to a respectable level. Milan were the best side we could have faced. They are six points clear at the top of Serie A.

Zlatan Ibrahimović, the world’s highest paid player, is on loan from Barcelona and if Antonio Cassano signs in January as he’s expected to they’ll have another potent attacker they’ve acquired without breaking the bank. Robinho and Alex Pato are two of the most exciting players in Europe and they also have seven World Cup winners in Gianluca Zambrotta, Andrea Pirlo, Filippo Inzaghi, Massimo Oddo, Alessandro Nesta, Rino Gattuso and Ronaldinho. 

But Milan won’t be thrilled to have drawn us, especially after we turned over their neighbours. Kevin-Prince Boateng had a good World Cup, but any team in which he’s a regular aren’t to be feared.

Tom Huddlestone will be back and if we have our other key players fit – Gareth Bale, Luka Modrić, Rafael van der Vaart – we are capable of beating them over two legs. When we visited the San Siro in October we played like a non-league team, Until an unstoppable Gareth Bale hatrick. Lessons were learned and our defence hasn’t played as bad as that since. Having the second leg at White Hart Lane is advantageous. This season we’ve been far better coming from behind than holding on to a lead.

It would’ve been nice to have drawn FC Copenhagen or Marseille, but great victories come against great sides and if we beat both Milan clubs on the way to the quarter final it’ll be all the more glorious. 

AC Milan v Tottenham Hotspur - 15 February 

Tottenham Hotspur v AC Milan - 9 March 

Bentley to Liverpool/Birmingham

Never usually do I want a spurs player to leave the club however if there was a man less pleasing to watch than David Bentley I would kill myself. I believe he has never beaten a player for speed or dribbled it past them. However his crosses can be pretty marvelous at time. Aaron Lennon or David Bentley, it says it all a fast inspirational talent or well the other guy. I will always remember that stunner that somehow beat almunia during the 4 - 4 draw against arsenal.

On hearing he might leave to Birmingham for a sum of £8,000,000 I was pleased. Then we would have the money to buy a class player like Rat from Shaktar Donetsk or Luis Fabiano (sevilla).